


Assembly

by Mici (noharlembeat)



Series: Eight Nights [4]
Category: Kings (TV 2009)
Genre: F/M, Jewish Holidays, M/M, Non-Linear Narrative
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-19
Updated: 2014-12-19
Packaged: 2018-03-02 07:07:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,315
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2803919
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/noharlembeat/pseuds/Mici
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>There are beginnings and endings. That’s what every child learns, that the year is a beginning and an ending. Every beginning, then, follows with an ending - a new year, a turn, First Night and Second Night and bright gifts, that’s the beginning and ending for the whole world. The Atonement, the beginning and ending for the crimes of the soul, and Harvest, but Assembly, that’s the one David never grasped. It was a failure on his father’s part, he supposes, but with seven sons who would imagine one falling to the wayside?</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Assembly

There are days; when butterflies do not land on anyone, when the only thing to be done about Silas is to slog through more grit and dirt, when there are no signs but the endless deluge of autumn rain and the ceaseless tedium of monotonous countryside where David thinks he is not cut out for any kind of pious life. Jack cuts him a slice of something thick and noxious and utterly inedible and says, “Good Assembly,” with that _Benjamin_ look on his face, the kind of look that speaks as loudly about his opinion as would a screed against rain.

And David, in a moment of sheer and utter stupidity, replies with, “I didn’t assemble anything,” and Jack stares a moment before he bursts into laughter.

~~~~~

There are beginnings and endings. That’s what every child learns, that the year is a beginning and an ending. Every beginning, then, follows with an ending - a new year, a turn, First Night and Second Night and bright gifts, that’s the beginning and ending for the whole world. The Atonement, the beginning and ending for the crimes of the soul, and Harvest, but Assembly, that’s the one David never grasped. It was a failure on his father’s part, he supposes, but with seven sons who would imagine one falling to the wayside?

He does not understand, then, the ritual of getting dressed up and dragged in to listen to a reading and to think about the end of the word God passed down and then the beginning, all in one, long, endless night. It was David’s pleasure, instead, to fidget and toss and eventually squeeze out of the pews, to head to the bathroom, to miss the dancing and the party and the blessings - countless blessings - and to instead hide there, for hours, playing the piano in his head to pass the time.

Eli is the one who always finds him, _every year_ , without fail. “Aren’t you getting a little old for this avoidance, David?”

“Don’t make me go back. There’s still another hour of this left.”

Eli never makes him go back, They have had this conversation every year, in almost the same exact words, and Eli never makes him go back. “I don’t think God would want you to miss out on watching the Reverend make a drunken fool of himself.”

David shakes his head. “It’s better for God that I not see everything, and my faith doesn’t shatter like glass.”

Eli tugs a book out of his coat pocket. “I won’t tell if you won’t tell,” he says with a smile, and David grins, closes his eyes, and plays Liszt in his head.

~~~~~

“You aren’t going to Assembly dressed like that,” Silas says in the most thunderous way that David imagines those words could ever be said. “Perry, let it be noted that Captain Shepherd is not going to Assembly dressed like that.”

Perry dutifully copies that down, although David doesn’t know why (and to be honest, David doesn’t understand about 98% of the reasons why Perry writes down _anything_ ) and Silas pushes him towards Jack, seamlessly. Not two weeks past, Silas wanted David’s head for almost ruining diplomatic relations with Gath. This week, he’s demanding that he accompany him to Assembly.

Endings, and beginnings, David musters, noting the poetry of it, but he doesn’t have time to linger on those thoughts, because he’s already getting pulled towards Jack’s dressing room. “I don’t know what you would do without me,” Jack says, but the tone of his voice does not suggest that this is anything he’s particularly pleased to be saying.

“Look like a fool,” David admits, as Jack shakes his head. David undresses and Jack turns his head, just barely, to watch, or better, to _supervise_. It is not a comfortable thing, because David keeps looking up right when Jack is looking at his body, and flushing, and thinking of how Michelle’s eyes are so warm when her twin’s are so cold.

“You’re still taller than me,” David says, “And thinner.”

“Stop talking, Shepherd, I’d rather you not be wearing one of my suits, either,” Jack snaps, as if he’s been caught doing something he shouldn’t be. David feels, every suit he borrows, every shirt, as if it’s another beginning with Jack. The prince’s clothes should not feel like such an intimacy, but the more it happens - this is the third time, now, the first being that beautiful tux, cut to size, and the second a hoodie he borrowed on First Night, and now - but sometimes David cannot stop thinking about how they may be clean, but they were on Jack’s body, draped over him, and it is something that makes him take pause. “It’ll have to do.”

“I should just wear my uniform.”

“Not to Assembly. My father thinks it’s disrespectful,” Jack says, sitting now, letting David fumble with his tie. David has tied a tie thousands of times, but Jack is watching so naturally the skill leaves him. “Just sit quietly and don’t fidget, and no one will notice.”

He doesn’t know how to tell Jack that fidgeting is what he does at Assembly - that he can sit still for hours at the piano, at services for almost any other holiday, but Assembly puzzles him still, the joy of it eluding his grasp.

~~~~~

David likes stories that end.

He presses his face to Michelle’s side, and thinks of stories that end, that end with _and all was well, from that day on_ and thinks how much he would like that, for everything to be well. She curls up next to him, in the spot Eli would have taken up, sneaking out only moments after he sat and hid and thought of a piano piece but all that filled his head was the smell of her, the look of her, and the itch of the suit against his hips.

~~~~

David likes stories that end.

Put when he pushes Jack down into the thin blanket that they have taken to sharing, when he kisses him and doesn’t think about how Jack’s eyes and Michelle’s eyes match when they are passionate, when they have only his pleasure or their own in their thoughts, he does not think that this is a story that will end badly.

~~~~~

“You have it wrong,” is what Reverend Samuels tells him, after he’s caught hiding in an office and not at services. “Assembly is not about endings.”

“Beginnings are always about endings,” David says. “And I like stories that end.”

Reverend Samuels looks at him, severely. “You say that because you are young. Endings are the joy of young men. Old men, they revel in beginnings. You should dance for the ending, the next time,” he says, and there, suddenly, the slightest smile.

David knows he is blushing, he can feel it in his face. “I don’t think God would really like that.”

Reverend Samuels doesn’t say anything about that, and suddenly David is self-conscious, speaking of God. 

~~~~~

David loves real endings, proper goodbyes, things that are resolved. “I’ve had so little resolution in my life,” is what he says to Jack, but Jack is not there. Michelle is, instead, and she replies, as if she can reply for the both of them.

“It’s Assembly,” she tells him. “We should go.”

“I’ve never liked beginnings very much,” he say, suddenly, looking up at her. “I always leave before they start the story anew.”

“You’re the king,” she states, stubbornly, as if she hasn’t heard him. “You have to go.”

He does not sigh when he gets up, but it is a near thing. “Will you hide with me, when I leave?”

“Aren’t you getting a little old for this avoidance, David?” she asks, and he’s struck for a moment, by the wording.

The piano in his head drowns out the rest of the ending. He does not like this beginning.

**Author's Note:**

> Okay so this is based on Shemini Atzeret which is not a holiday most non-Jewish people know much about. It is the holiday where the Jewish cycle of reading the first five books of the Bible in weekly portions ends, and then begins again.


End file.
